


House of Cards

by melonpaan



Category: Love Shuffle
Genre: F/M, Unbeta'd, spoilers for the End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonpaan/pseuds/melonpaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four couples, sixteen possibilities, a game of chance. Ante up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House of Cards

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Kami, Jen, and Belle. ♥

 

_Usami Kei/Kagawa Mei_

 

They get married as planned and the rest unfolds like a fairytale; a beautiful wife, a promotion at work, and soon a two-story house to raise perfect little children and live out the rest of their perfect little lives. Together.

“You should have cleaned out your apartment _before_ our honeymoon,” Mei chides gently, setting down a dusty cardboard box and wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. Her hair is in a messy bun and there is a faint layer of dust on rosy pink cheeks. He rubs them clean with his thumbs and smiles and _smiles_ because he can’t help it when he looks at her. Sweet, wonderful, beautiful Mei.

“You didn’t have to go through the trouble, we could have hired someone to clean it for us.”

Her smile falters and for a second he’s afraid he’s said something wrong again, but she just sighs and sifts through the contents of the box: old newspapers he always meant, but never bothered, to read. “What if there’s something important you forgot to pack? They might just throw it out.” Generous, caring, magnificent Mei!

“They could throw everything out and I’d be happy as long as I’m with you,” he replies seriously, taking her hands into his and staring deep into her eyes.

She laughs, the corners of her mouth curling demurely, and the weight of the world feels lifted from his chest. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then, should we leave everything as is and get something to eat?”

“Sounds like a plan!” He kisses her on the top of her head. “But—if you want, I’ll get rid of the rest of the boxes so someone else won’t have to.” Her smile widens and he takes it as a sign of encouragement. “Just wait here and I’ll be back.”

She doesn’t reply, too immersed in a set of old, worn billiard balls in a different box, from a different life. He picks up the box closest to his feet, one filled to the brim with empty bottles and cans, and heads outside.

“Ah, moving in?” There’s a woman leaning against the apartment door across from his, dressed in a neat trench coat revealing the barest hint of black tights disappearing into leather boots. She seems, at first glance, nothing like Mei.

“Moving out, actually. I just got married.”

“Oh, congratulations!” she says, and there’s something just a bit becoming about her smile. She passes him on the way to the elevator, but it’s only as the doors close on her image that he realizes, “Ah, I was heading down, too.”

They will move into their dream home, but it will take two years, five months, and sixteen days before they ever get fully unpacked. On that day Mei, already five months pregnant, will stumble across an old lacquered box hiding in-between layers upon layers of silk and satin bed sheets. She will run her hands over a set of faded billiard balls and wonder why they never go skiing anymore. At night she will lie in an empty bed with hands over her stomach and fight hard the temptation to drink herself to sleep.

On the very same day, Kei will sit in his office and wonder how the Vice President of a major corporation could feel so insignificant and useless _every single day_ of his life. At night he will find himself at a ramen stand surrounded by empty bottles of sake and one untouched bowl of noodles and feel the line between love and resentment blur to obscurity.

 

 

 

 

_Oishi Yukichi/Aizawa Airu_

He takes her to Italy when she’s craving spaghetti, Spain when she’s feeling tapas, the best bakery in France when all she wants a simple loaf of bread. She tells him he doesn’t have to each time, but each time he just shrugs his shoulders, fixes his glasses, and says, with a bright smile on his face meant only for her, “No, it’s nothing.”

It isn’t nothing.

But they stay together, cling desperately together though they’re falling apart, even Airu, for reasons she will never admit. It isn’t the money or the fancy restaurants or expensive presents—she doesn’t need them, could do perfectly well without them, begins to hate them because what she sees is someone trying to set a price on her life. What he sees is someone who believes he’s worth nothing.

One day he will be on edge, she will be high-strung, and they will actually fight instead of letting their feelings bubble viciously under the surface.

“What do you want from me?” he will ask, beg, plead, unable to offer anything more. “What can I—”

“I just want—something simple.”

“Then I’ll—”

“Simplicity isn’t something you can buy.” She won’t look at him, and after an agonizing silence, there will be a bottle of Evian water pressed against her cheek.

“Is it something you can bottle?” he will ask, endearingly hopeful, and she will recall their first meeting and old feelings of sympathy and complacency will take over.

“No it’s not, Yukki,” she will say at last, taking the bottle and pretending she doesn’t hear the echo of _Yuki Yuki Yuki_ afterward.

 

 

 

 

_Kikuta Masato/Hayakawa Kairi_

After the end he asks if she knows why he didn’t choose kings. She doesn’t answer, so he replies, “Because there is only one king. Do you know who that king is?”

_Thanatos_.

“ _Yes_ , Thanatos. There is only one ruler over all of us—and that is death. No matter how hard men may try to fight it, and oh how hard they have tried, there is no escaping death. He is our king, and we, mere jacks trying in vain to steal away his queen.” He breaks off and allows himself a wry chuckle. “But he always gets the last laugh in the end, that Thanatos.”

He lays a bouquet of bleeding hearts over her tombstone as the sun begins to set. “Goodbye, Kairi. I promise I’ll visit next year.”

He will keep his promise until the day he meets his king.

 

 

 

 

_Sera Oujiro/Kamijyo Reiko_

She has a boy. He learns this five years after their last encounter, from a simple telephone greeting.

“So that’s why I never saw you again.”

“My, did you worry? You always seemed so intent on running away.”

“Don’t you dare joke about it. One day you just up and leave, no goodbyes, no nothing? You move out of your place, change your phone number—did you really think I wouldn’t worry?!”

There is a long pause over the phone. He fills the void with smoke before exhaling harshly.

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought he was too busy fucking his young mistress.”

“He still is.”

“So you found someone new? Congratulations.”

“No.”

“Then?”

“He’s yours.”

“Who?”

Her laughter is a throaty rumble, slow and enthralling and the familiar noise makes the blood pulse through his veins. “He’s your son.”

The cigarette falls from his lips.

“Thank you. I could never bring myself to say it before, to contact you before now, but thank you. I always wanted a son.”

He will never meet her again, but he will meet his son— _her_ son—once, twenty years later. The resemblance is subtle, but uncanny to a trained eye: in the sloping shoulders, the tilt of the head, the eterally unsettled eyebrows.

“Thank you so much for having me today,” Hiroya will say, bowing in a perfect ninety-degree angle, making sure not to wrinkle his pristine suit. “I know men are not your usual clientele.”

“Your mother is a powerful and influential woman,” Oujiro will reply with a faded grin, grinding his cigarette into ash.

“Ah, yes, she is.”

“You’re going to make one hell of a great politician, kid.” A single candid flash. “It’s in your genes.”

 

 

 

 

_Usami Kei/Kamijyo Reiko_

They have a boy. He is fair skinned and soft and round with a bit of black fluff on top for hair. He sleeps cradled against Reiko’s chest, tiny eyebrows furrowed and even tinier eyelashes fluttering with every little breath. Reiko presses a finger against his cheek hesitantly, as if afraid he will crumble against the pressure, this precious, miraculous child. He stirs but doesn’t wake and only then does she allow herself to breathe.

“You didn’t have to stay, Usami-kun.” Even the tone of her voice is different, softened by a motherly radiance.

“It didn’t seem right—your husband couldn’t—”

“Soon to be ex-husband.”

“Right. Have you thought of a name?”

She purses her lips. “Keizo.”

“K-Kei—”

“Named after Obuchi Keizo, of course. He was born on the 25th of July, after all.”

“Of course.” He brushes a finger against wisps of soft black hair and is amazed at how delicate they are, how fine and fragile. “He will make a beautiful prime minister.”

“You don’t have to stay, Usami-kun.”

“I know.” But he does, because he’s Usami Kei.

There will be no wedding, no marriage, no recognition at all. He will watch his son from the shadows as people will recognize Keizo as Hiroya’s son. Kei is not allowed to see him during the day, there is too much risk and even one scandal could ruin Keizo’s future forever, but at night, as Kei watches his son sleep, he will breathe, _beautiful_ , and Reiko will whisper, _like his father_.

 

 

 

 

_Oishi Yukichi/Hayakawa Kairi_

After the end he finds no comfort in the silence of an empty restaurant or a private reservation—he despises it, the attention of the entire wait staff staring, judging. Instead he seeks solace in crowded cafes and diners filled with the noise and chatter of young teenagers and old widows and middle-aged salary men. Even indecent conversation, Yukichi realizes, is better than to be left with the voice in his head whispering, _some hero_.

At night he will leave his television on at full volume and when that proves inadequate, he will let the crunching of ice fill his ears until he can finally fall asleep.

 

 

 

 

_Kikuta Masato/Kagawa Mei_

Two nights out of every year he doesn’t come back to the apartment until well after midnight, smelling faintly of wine and roses. A gentleman to the very end. Mei never questions where he’s been and Masato never supplies any answers; he’s asleep the moment he lays down and is gone in the morning when she wakes. The conversation they could have— _should_ have—gets lost somewhere in-between those glancing seconds.

Mei knows all she has to do is ask and he will allow her to come with him, to share in his grief and whatever else it is that has him so twisted in the sheets, crying hoarsely from vivid nightmares that _she_ can’t fall asleep even if she wanted—but she’s never been the type to ask. Masato knows all he has to do is be honest and she will offer to come, gladly come and hold his hand and cry sweet, innocent tears with him— _for_ him—but he’s never been the honest type.

One day the nightmares will become too much and Masato will awaken with a start and find tears streaming down his face. Mei will finally ask what is haunting him, what she can do to make the pain go away, but his throat will close because he is afraid to speak the truth, afraid that if he puts the notion into her mind she will think about it until she is suffering just as much as he is and she is so suggestible, so naïve, Mei. To be honest would taint the innocent with despair; to be honest would be Thanatos’s greatest wish.

She will ask him— _beg_ him—to look at her, to close his eyes as if he is trying to confine her within him, but when his eyes close and he finally falls asleep she will slip away and pour herself a glass of wine in the kitchen. She will read aloud, softly, “The salamander was sad,” and realize it is even harder to win over a bad memory.

 

 

 

 

_Sera Oujiro/Aizawa Airu_

He’s sly and she’s sassy and their relationship is spicy and passionate and it works—for the first few months. In the beginning there’s barely enough will-power to keep their hands off each other in the elevator, let alone wait until they’re fully inside an apartment—once, unfortunately and embarrassingly, one that wasn’t either of theirs. Dinner is anything they can find in his fridge—hers is always empty—eaten voraciously in bed. Then seconds.

Passion cools into romance and candlelit dinners and moonlit strolls on the beach and dancing with each other, around each other, against each other. There is suddenly time to talk so they fill it with past flings, present ideas, and future dreams. They don’t speak about heavier, serious things anymore. Ever again. Serious conversations lead to heated discussions grow into raging brawls end with her tongue down his throat and his hand up her skirt blur into hours later with no words said in-between.

They sometimes speak of serious things.

Romance settles into routine: they spend more time apart, but when they decide to meet she buys ingredients, he cooks dinners, and they play house almost but not quite like their very first date. Their conversation becomes stagnant, filled with empty words and meaningless gestures because he’s head-strong and she’s opinionated and they’re both one word away from cracking. Hers is _Yuki_ ; his is _Art_.

Their relationship becomes a cycle of burning summers and freezing winters, obsession and fury and silence and apathy and messy breakups and messier make ups. Kiku-rin asks them separately why they continue this pattern in spite of knowing their habits, and though they both refuse to reply, they both know the answer: they are too masochistic to leave and sadistic enough to stay.

They don’t speak of love. Ever. Not anymore. It’s too serious of a topic. He doesn’t really believe in it, and she never really sees herself in it.

Then they have The Fight. They don’t even know what causes it, only that it ends with her scoffing at his pornography of art and him bringing up her incapacity to love because of Yuki. Before she can slap him she’s in his arms, pressed flat against his chest, and he’s whispering apologies into her hair and she’s crying and angry and for some inexplicable reason excited and when he snaps a picture of them both— _raw, ugly, utterly fallible human beings_ —she laughs. And wonders, for one weak moment, if they’re in love.

She retaliates by banning the camera from the bedroom.

It will be the only picture of the two of them, hidden under a loose floorboard nailed shut in her bedroom. Because only there, in the glossy, four-by-six flat surface of his gaze and her smile will Airu see her life in nothing more than two dimensions of imperfection.

 

 

 

 

_Usami Kei/Hayakawa Kairi_

After the end her father comes to visit. “I thought this should belong to you,” he says, offering a small cardboard box. Inside is a stuffed panda with one droopy eye, and pages upon pages of his image: sketches, acrylics, pastels, oils—every media imaginable.

But it wasn’t enough.

“I knew you weren’t a model,” her father says suddenly, and Kei has the decency to look ashamed. He’s about to apologize, but her father raises a hand for silence. “No, it’s okay. I was just happy you were trying. I was happy she was happy—she seemed happy. Happier than she’s been in a while.”

But he wasn’t enough.

“I’m sorry, Hayakawa-san.”

“Thank you, Usami-kun.”

He will never be enough.

 

 

 

 

_Oishi Yukichi/Kamijyo Reiko_

They have a boy. _She_ has a boy.

She decides to raise him on her own, despite the critical attention of the media and Hiroya’s claims of her having taken several young lovers. Despite it all she never once regrets the decision to divorce him, although the constant haranguing and the fact that Keizo doesn’t stop crying make life difficult. Then one day it all stops. On the same day a nursemaid shows up at her door. The next day Yukichi does.

“I wanted to see how Rina-chan was doing,” is his explanation.

“You sent her? Oishi-kun, I told you you didn’t have to—”

“But I was worried about you both,” he replies softly, and something about the sight makes Reiko’s heart soften a bit.

It might be the contacts. “I see you’ve taken my advice.”

“Y-yes!”

Over the years Reiko will find more and more presents from Yukichi—fully paid tuitions, brand name clothing, vacations to exotic islands, an entire restaurant reserved for Keizo’s birthday. She will allow him to spoil Keizo because Yukichi is still a good, if misguided, person. Sometimes she will think she is not doing him any favors by creating the illusion of love and necessity in this child, _her_ son.

One day she will tell him, sadly, “Money cannot buy everything, Oishi-kun. It can’t buy a family.”

One day he will tell her he already knows.

 

 

 

 

_Kikuta Masato/Aizawa Airu_

Masato finds comfort in rituals and structure. He likes that even the simplest, mundane actions can be given a greater meaning once there is a unifying system. Creating order from chaos.

Order is the only thing that keeps him together.

He arrives with the sunset after making one stop at the florist for some fresh lilies; the wine is bought a week in advance, a sweet White Zinfandel. He sits by the headstone for no more than five hours, no less than three, taking gentle sips from his wine glass. He is always alone. Perhaps one last punishment from Thanatos, or a blessing: there is no one to grieve with him. He does not cry. After he’s done, he sets off to spend hours wandering the city until he can think no more.

The first hitch in his ritual is when Airu asks to come along. He agrees if only because he’s never refused a request from a woman before. The wine is already bought and they make a stop for flowers, but when they arrive and Airu tells him not to smile when he’s sad, something stirs inside him. He’s both thankful and regretful of the call from Usa-tan. On the one hand, Masato isn’t sure how much longer he could resist the temptation for sympathy, on the other hand, the image of Airu’s retreating form makes him feel even more empty, hollowed out and left to dry. Alone. Again. Always.

Later, wandering the streets surrounded by hundreds of Tokyo passersby, he breaks down into tears.

The next year she upsets his ritual again. “I know you already rejected me, but I—thought it might be lonely.” She offers him a bouquet of lilies. “You bought them last time, right? I figured they were his favorite.”

“Perceptive as always.”

Airu manages a thin smile. “Then, I guess I should leave you—”

“Would you like to join me today?” the words come out unplanned, but he realizes her company would not be unwelcome. “You left before seeing the rest of my ritual.”

“Ritual?”

They will drink away the night and he will confess he’s never liked white wine, that the real reason Masato comes later in the day is because his family said it was all his fault, that Masato should have been able to save him—what kind of doctor can he possibly be. They will drink until the bottle is empty and find a secluded booth in a restaurant to drink and curse Thanatos and his head will find its way onto her shoulder and her hands over his and she will ask, smelling sweetly of Pinot, if sympathy is so much worse than love and he won’t be sure there is a right answer.

 

 

 

 

_Sera Oujiro/Kagawa Mei_

It doesn’t actually surprise him how soft her lips are against his. It doesn’t surprise him when she runs, the soles of her shoes making gentle pitter-patters on cobblestone sidewalks. A girl who would hand you a love letter and quickly run away.

What does surprise him is the second kiss. And the third. The fourth. The black lace under modest wool sweaters. The fact that her bedroom is decorated in shades of blues and grays with no frills in sight except for a single teddy bear holding a stuffed pink heart with an inscription he can barely make out with her soft lips on his collar— _From Kei, with love_.

Oujiro drops his hands from her waist.

“What is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“ _No_. No. It’s me. I can’t—Kei—”

“ _Kei_ made his choice,” she says firmly, fingers trailing across his exposed abdomen. “Let me make mine.”

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, because asking would be the gentlemanly thing to do and she is a _lady_ , but then she’s biting on her lip coyly as she reaches behind and oh, there goes the black lace. _Surprise_. A little devil parading around as an angel.

“And here I thought you were a virgin.”

“I am.” She raises her chin defiantly. “Is something wrong with _that_?”

“No.”

“Then what are we wait—” but the words trail into a squeal as he pins her down in a single fluid motion. She’s breathless and there’s a flush on her cheeks and her hair is in disarray and her lips are quivering and the wish for a camera overtakes him. Followed by a wave of disgust. Mei’s eyes are moist and she’s squeezing them shut and she’s in pain and he’s _taking advantage of her_ and—

“Keep going.”

“What?”

“Keep going.” She looks at him with wide, wet eyes, and though she’s biting her lip again it isn’t the face of a devil looking back at him. “Please.” So he listens, because Mei is a lady and to deny her request would be ungentlemanly.

It’s the same reason that, when he hears her crying at night—noiseless sobs that wrack her entire frame—he pretends to sleep.

She is gone before he wakes in the morning. Somehow he’s not surprised.

He will never be able to photograph another woman again; it will feel like a violation of rights, a betrayal. The only time he will allow it will be years later on her wedding day, a wedding he attends uninvited. She will be dressed in a snow white gown and there will be a beautiful smile across her lips as she and Kei make their way down the steps of the chapel and into a black limousine. He will look at the image on his cell phone and find a humble, beautiful woman trapped in an eternal lie.

 

 

 

 

_Usami Kei/Aizawa Airu_

Work keeps them too busy to meet, let alone hold a decent conversation without interruptions on both ends. Politics this and translate that and suddenly it’s been forever since Usami Kei and Aizawa Airu could just be _Usa-tan_ and _Ai-Ai._

Sometimes she almost catches herself missing—his presence next door, but quickly dismisses the notion as the product of sleepless nights and work-related stress and anything else she can pin the blame on. Kei has an apartment on the other side of the city, partly to keep up the image of an everyman’s politician, but mostly because he’s never actually felt comfortable in the lap of luxury. It would be selfish to suggest that he move in with her and fit himself around her schedule when he’s finally enjoying himself and, more importantly, work. Besides, she misses O-chan, too.

Sometimes she and Masato drink wine in the hallway, but it’s just not the same when the other two tenants just glance curiously on before retiring into their apartments for the night.

Usually just when she’s fooled herself into thinking she doesn’t miss him, not even in the slightest bit, there will be a ring at her doorbell and he’ll be there in front of her and her heart will skip a beat and she’ll laugh and cry and hit him over the head and then they’ll order food because she won’t have anything in her fridge and the only thing he can cook is rice porridge.

Today it’s a delivery man.

She signs the slip, takes the box from his hands without meeting his eye, and then promptly throws it onto the floor of her living room and berates herself for being so meek and needy and—so obviously in love with an idiot.

“You love him so much you’re turning into an idiot, too,” she sighs, sitting on the floor and taking the package into her lap: inside is a stuffed bunny with long skinny ears, a floppy cotton tail, and a felt heart sewn over the chest. But it isn’t the doll that catches her attention so much as the paper card dangling from its neck. It reads: _In total this is a rabbit worth 750,000 yen_.

“Say it ain’t so—”

“Joe.”

She _screams_ , turns to see her apartment door ajar and the delivery man peeking in. She wants to cry pervert, call the cops, _kick him_ , but then she realizes she recognizes that stupid voice—and stupid, _stupid_ smile.

She decides to at least kick him.

“Ow—Ai-Ai—ouch—is that any way to treat the idiot you _love_ so much?!”

“You heard that?” she screeches, kicking and punching at him until he falls onto the floor and rolls out of her way. She flings the doll at him in anger and he lets out a gasp before barely managing to catch it.

“Geez, you’re always throwing things,” he mutters, more concerned about the doll than _angry soon-to-possibly-be-ex-girlfriend_.

“Give me a reason not to for a change! And should a poor politician be spending so much money on some stupid stuffed toy rabbit?!”

“You didn’t see it, did you?”

“ _See what_?”

Kei smiles and walks closer, though he rightly maintains enough distance so that she can’t kick him again. “The doll—I got it in two tries. It’s only worth 200 yen.”

“Oh, bravo.” She slow claps.

“But this,” he continues, ignoring her, reaching into the felt heart pocket and taking out something small, silver, and shiny— _oh_. “This is worth 749,800 yen.” He gets down on one knee. “Marry me, Ai-Ai—eh, should it be Airu? Marry me, Airu. Hm, I think I like Ai-Ai better—”

“ _Stupid_.” She doesn’t know whether to kick him or punch him but when his eyes widen she ends up sliding onto the floor, exhausted.

“That’s not really how it's supposed to—are you crying?”

“ _No_ , stupid,” she sniffs, covering her face with her hands.

“So—you’ll marry me?”

“Yes, _stupid_.”

He laughs, but when she feels his arms around her she adds, pettily, “But I’m keeping the 35 yen.”

“Cheapskate.”

 

 

 

 

_Oishi Yukichi/Kagawa Mei_

“We didn’t have to come on your honey moon,” he says forlornly from the balcony. The view stretches into an endless white beach and the crystal clear waters of Hawaii, but he can’t help but feel uncomfortable by the entire situation.

“Well, father already paid for the hotel, it seemed like a waste,” Mei replies, unpacking her luggage into one of the drawers before starting on his.

“I could have given the money to your father—it’s the least I could do since—eh, you shouldn’t have to unpack my clothes, too!”

“Mm, it’s okay.”

“It’s not!” Yukichi replies, scrambling over the bed to take his shirt from her. His hand brushes against hers accidentally and the article of clothing falls to the floor. “Ah. I’m sorry.”

“Yukichi-kun—”

“Mei-san—” When he looks at her face his eyes travel to her lips and he flushes and quickly looks away. “Ah, but you have nothing to worry about on this trip. I won’t get any ideas! I’ll sleep on the couch!”

“It might not be comfortable.”

“No, it definitely will be! All I need is a blanket— _blanket_!” he cries, dashing toward the closet for extra blankets and pillows. In the process of rushing back with them he manages catch his foot on the end of a blanket and tangle himself into a makeshift cocoon, knocking his glasses off in the process. He glances back at her, thoroughly embarrassed, then dismayed at the hands over her lips to keep from laughing. “I know—there’s no reason you could really grow to love me. I know you were being nice and—”

“Yukichi-kun, if it’s okay with you…would you like to sleep together tonight?”

“YOU WILL CATCH A COLD!” he cries, struggling to both free himself from the clutches of the blanket and get as far away from her as possible. He trips over his feet and rolls until he’s unwound and free and right at her feet, staring up at her face. She looks about as red as he feels.

“I-I mean just—sleeping. In the same bed. Would be okay with me.” She looks away, playing with her hands. “Yukichi-kun thinks too highly of me. I’m not that nice. I wouldn’t be here if I honestly didn’t feel something for you, okay?”

“Y-yes.”

At night they sleep on the edges of the bed, and Yukichi finds himself too nervous to move, let alone breathe, but then her gentle hand finds his under the covers and he finally relaxes until sleep claims him whole. They don’t let go for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

 

_Kikuta Masato/Kamijyo Reiko_

They have a girl.

“So what happens to your plan now?” he asks, rocking her gently in his arms as Reiko watches from her bed.

“Should something happen to them?” She ties her hair back casually and the neck of the hospital gown falls against her arm, revealing the smooth curve of her breast. Masato fixes the gown over her shoulder with one hand while continuing to cradle their little girl. She smiles defiantly. “Who says a woman cannot become prime minister someday? Japan could use some change.”

“Ah, so you have everything figured out.”

“Of course. She will still have the best of everything—the best education, the best upbringing—” Reiko pauses, glancing his way. “The best father.”

He smiles curiously. “Is that a proposal?”

“It’s only a proposal if there’s a diamond ring.”

“There’s only a diamond ring if you say _yes_.”

“Then, yes.”

They say nothing else for the rest of the night, but they’ve never really needed words.

 

 

 

 

_Sera Oujiro/Hayakawa Kairi_

In Somalia she sketches a picture of Masato and Reiko with a little baby girl. She has Reiko’s eyes and Masato’s nose.

“That’s nice,” Oujiro comments, though it’s an understatement. It's as if his entire world has been washed over in shades of grey and strokes of lead and people who could not possibly be here, now, have suddenly turned up at their door; Masato and his cleverly infuriating smile and Reiko with all her subtle elegance. “But Reiko-san wants a boy.”

“It’s a girl.”

“She hasn’t even gotten a sonogram, yet.”

“It’s a girl,” Kairi repeats, sketching a border of lilies around the happy family.

 

*

 

In Sudan she requests oil pastels. When he tells her it’s impossible she stares as if she doesn’t understand and refuses to speak. For three days. It’s only when she stops eating that he sighs and pushes his plate away. “Okay, okay, I’ll find you some freaking oil pastels.” She smiles and proceeds to polish off her dinner—and the rest of his.

It takes him nearly two weeks to find some oil pastels. They’re broken in pieces, covered in dirt, and there are only two distinguishable colors: blue and purple. But her smile is radiant when she sees them and she spends another three days completely ignoring his existence around the fringes of parchment paper. When she finally lets him look, with fingers smeared blue and purple, he’s surprised to see Mei and Yukichi looking back at him. Almost. The image before him doesn’t have the striking clarity and sense of familiarity and longing that her previous works had.

“Well, I guess the oil pastels were a failure,” he says, trying not to seem disappointed. He’s worried that it was macabre taking her with him, as if he had played right into Thanatos’s hands yet again. He should have left her in Japan.

“Twins.”

“Huh? Whose?”

She tilts her head to one side and he mimics her action, trying as always, in vain, to see what she sees. It clicks like a camera shutter.

“ _Mei’s and Yukki’s_?”

She nods.

“Don’t be ridiculous—I mean, I know they’re married, but I bet they haven’t even slept together yet.”

“They have.”

He pauses, glances at her expressionless face to the twins with Mei’s cheeks and Yukki’s eyes and then laughs and shakes his head. “No way they have.”

“They have.”

 

*

 

They stop into Prague to replenish supplies, but end up staying three weeks for the architecture. Capturing still life, a different kind of still life, is a welcome change of pace and Kairi, too, seems to enjoy the baroque cathedrals. A postcard from Masato finds them just as they’re packing to board a train.

_I hope this postcard, out of so many others, finally reaches you—and that you’ll reply to let us all know how you’re doing. Reiko-san and I had a girl. We’ve named her Lily. I hope you will come back to see her soon. Everyone sends their love._

_-Kiku-rin_

He puts down the post card and squints hard in her direction. “You can’t really…tell the future. Can you?”

She continues eating her gelato.

 

*

 

In Pakistan she sketches Kei with charcoal made from wood he burned himself. They are smaller images than she usually creates, profiles of his face from various angles, some half bodied, some full bodied, some wearing suits, some holding a panda, some—

“Why do you know what his penis looks like?”

“Model.”

“Oh. I forgot about that.” He tries for nonchalance. “So—”

“Smaller.”

“Ah.” He smothers a smile in vain.

 

*

 

In Panmunjom he snaps a single photograph of the DMZ amidst a crowd of awed tourists. The air is filled with tension.

“Why don’t we just cross?” she whispers, staring across the distance in front of them. A tantalizing picture of a peaceful village behind barbed wire fences. “I can’t die from bullet wounds.”

“Well _I_ can,” he replies, taking her by the hand and following the tour guide.

At night she draws Airu in ink. Different Airus. Sometimes she is laughing, sometimes she is crying, many times she looks angry or frustrated or confused. He watches her work on her seventh image before finally asking, “Why is it that you haven’t drawn her and Usa-tan together?”

“Busy.”

“Hm, they would be.”

In the morning he finds scribbled in the corner of her fourth page of Airu: two rabbits with long skinny ears and crayon red hearts. And a diamond ring.

 

*

 

They receive Kiku-rin’s second post card—his twelfth attempt—during a brief stay in Greece. “Usa-tan and Ai-Ai are getting married. They’re waiting for us to set a date.” He tries to gague her reaction, but she doesn't seem to be listening. “Can you really see the future?”

“ _Genpan da_.”

“Cute,” he replies dryly, flipping through a tattered folder of her artwork. It strikes him then that their roles have reversed: in Japan he photographed the living; she painted the ethereal. Now he photographs what could have been and she draws what is to become. Another thought strikes him then. “Why don’t you ever draw me?”

She licks stray Baklava crumbs from her lips and stares roundly up at him. He laughs at the sight, ruffles her hair and tries not to wonder if she can see a future with him.

“I can’t see it.”

“Eh?”

“The future.”

Somehow he’s not sure which question she’s answering.

“When you’re not around, he shows me.”

The _he_ is implicit. “The future?”

She nods.

“So you can see it.”

She nods.

“But you can’t see a future with me.”

She nods.

“Oh.”

“I can’t see it.”

He suddenly has very different reservations about bringing her along with him.

“When I’m with you…I can’t see him.”

And just as suddenly he finally sees what she sees. “Why?”

“He’s afraid.”

“ _Why_?”

There’s the barest hint of a smile on her lips. “Because you’re the other reaper.”

Something in his heart twinges, but instead of looking away in embarrassment he takes her into his arms and spins her around and around. “I am, and don’t you dare forget it!”

 

 

 

 

 

_fin._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Genpan = negative (as in film). And yes, I know, I hate random Japanese words in fic as much as everyone else, but. I just. Couldn't resist this one. I feel like the writers of _Love Shuffle_ would agree with me, even if this pun probably wouldn't work as well in Japanese as it does in Japanese-translated-to-English. 
> 
> March 2011.


End file.
